The hostel is nice, it has a good social area and a small pool at the back. Every day is hot and sunny. I find myself taking on a certain routine. This is the first time I have been in one place for a number of days since Moscow. During the day I go sightseeing. Riding around Bishkek. Bishkek is not the most beautiful of cities, but it does have a unique feel and I grow to like the place. Bishkek is a fairly new city. It was first developed during the start of the 20th century, and by the mid 1920's became the capital of the Kyrgyz SSR. The architecture here is modern. Lots of strong communist lines in crumbling concrete and flaking paint, mostly white. The city is not so large, about 900,000 people and is laid out on a grid system, so navigation is not so difficult.
The city centre has most of the cultural sites, with Ala-Too Square, the Parliament, a huge Kyrgyz flag with two soldiers always keeping guard and galleries and museums. The Kyrgyz National Art Gallery I particularly enjoyed. It is stuffed with numerous idealistic Communist era portraits of happy, strong workers building, harvesting and manufacturing. Everyone is in their late 20's, rosy cheeked, stoic in expression and blessed by bountiful sunshine. The History Museum has a splendid ceiling painting depicting the Kyrgyz/Soviet heroes of WWII fighting Nazi tyranny, and then goes on to tell the tale of US militarism and nuclear strength whilst portraying the peace loving Soviets holding anti nuclear arms slogans. In the middle a skeletal Texan cowboy rides a nuclear missile in the manner of Peter Sellers in Dr Strangelove.
My hostel is a few kilometers from the city centre. And near by there is a massive, modern cinema, entertainment, arcade games and restaurant complex. It seems that the more modern western style commercial complexes are being added to the edge of Bishkek, with the centre still architecturally more Soviet.
Evenings are spent drinking beer and Kyrgyz vodka fresh from the freezer. Booze is cheap, beer is about US$3 for 2 litres, and travelers like a drink! Before coming to Bishkek I imagined that the hostels would be full of travelers making a Europe/East Asia odyssey on some sort of vehicle, and taking time in Bishkek to rest and sort out visas. Bishkek is an excellent place to sort out visas for neighbouring countries. Kyrgyz visas are long (60 days) and free, allowing time to wait. There were plenty of people in the hostel waiting for a combination of Tajik, Uzbek, Chinese and Kazakh visas. And a variety of people on all sorts of adventures, from people taking part in the Mongol rally, to motorbike riders who had ridden from the UK and were off to China, from hitchhikers going wherever the thumb would take them to people traveling overland from one side of Europe to the other side of Asia. And yes, there were other cyclists there as well! Once the drink started to flow, the stories would as well of misadventures in the Caucuses, frost nip in Siberia, coping with Turkmen Border searches, ferries across the Caspian and so on...!
The city centre has most of the cultural sites, with Ala-Too Square, the Parliament, a huge Kyrgyz flag with two soldiers always keeping guard and galleries and museums. The Kyrgyz National Art Gallery I particularly enjoyed. It is stuffed with numerous idealistic Communist era portraits of happy, strong workers building, harvesting and manufacturing. Everyone is in their late 20's, rosy cheeked, stoic in expression and blessed by bountiful sunshine. The History Museum has a splendid ceiling painting depicting the Kyrgyz/Soviet heroes of WWII fighting Nazi tyranny, and then goes on to tell the tale of US militarism and nuclear strength whilst portraying the peace loving Soviets holding anti nuclear arms slogans. In the middle a skeletal Texan cowboy rides a nuclear missile in the manner of Peter Sellers in Dr Strangelove.
My hostel is a few kilometers from the city centre. And near by there is a massive, modern cinema, entertainment, arcade games and restaurant complex. It seems that the more modern western style commercial complexes are being added to the edge of Bishkek, with the centre still architecturally more Soviet.
Evenings are spent drinking beer and Kyrgyz vodka fresh from the freezer. Booze is cheap, beer is about US$3 for 2 litres, and travelers like a drink! Before coming to Bishkek I imagined that the hostels would be full of travelers making a Europe/East Asia odyssey on some sort of vehicle, and taking time in Bishkek to rest and sort out visas. Bishkek is an excellent place to sort out visas for neighbouring countries. Kyrgyz visas are long (60 days) and free, allowing time to wait. There were plenty of people in the hostel waiting for a combination of Tajik, Uzbek, Chinese and Kazakh visas. And a variety of people on all sorts of adventures, from people taking part in the Mongol rally, to motorbike riders who had ridden from the UK and were off to China, from hitchhikers going wherever the thumb would take them to people traveling overland from one side of Europe to the other side of Asia. And yes, there were other cyclists there as well! Once the drink started to flow, the stories would as well of misadventures in the Caucuses, frost nip in Siberia, coping with Turkmen Border searches, ferries across the Caspian and so on...!
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